


Coney Island Baby

by bluegeekEM, podfic_lover



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Audio Book, Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Coney Island, Epistolary, Family, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 30-45 Minutes, Prematurity, Referenced Joseph Rogers/Sarah Rogers, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-07-10 12:37:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19905850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluegeekEM/pseuds/bluegeekEM, https://archiveofourown.org/users/podfic_lover/pseuds/podfic_lover
Summary: A lot of details of Steve Rogers' life were sanitized for the public when he became Captain America.  Among those?  Steve was once one of the Coney Island incubator babies.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: this story contains references and descriptions of premature infants and their poor prognosis in 1918. Please feel free to message or comment if you need to ask content questions before reading or listening to the story.

**Length:** 43min:32sec

**Direct Download links thanks to paraka:** [Single file mp3](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2019/Coney%20Island%20Baby%20\(complete%20Podfic\).mp3) or [zip-file with chapter mp3s](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2019/Coney%20Island%20Baby%20mp3s.zip) or [m4b audiobook](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2019/Coney%20Island%20Baby.m4b)

**

“So, are you ready to be the star of the Smithsonian?”

“What?”

Steve glanced up in time to catch Natasha tucking a small firearm into a thigh holster beneath her dress and quickly glanced away again. Her soft chuckle tipped him off that she’d been deliberately trying to discomfit him. Again. All in the name of testing his “modern” sensibilities, of course. 

And, tucked away in the back of the SHIELD car carrying them towards the press event at the museum, he couldn’t easily escape her teasing.

“Wow the crowds, inspire the masses, reinvigorate an interest in history. All that Inspiring Cap stuff that you do. I heard that R2-D2 got bumped in favor of your exhibit.”

When he looked up again, Natasha’s clothing was back in place, with no hint that she was carrying, he noted, and she was patting her hair into place. She was brunette tonight, he noticed, though didn’t bother to play the “hair dye or wig” game.

“I’m ready to support my country and play the part of a dancing monkey once again, yes.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow at him, humor gone from her expression. “Oof. Wanna talk about that emotional minefield of a statement, there, Steve?”

“Not really, no.”

Natasha didn’t press. Or, she didn’t question him out loud. She did allow the silence to hang between them, however, and it continued to be an effective interrogation tactic when she turned it on him.

“I took a walk around the exhibit yesterday. I didn’t want-” Steve stopped abruptly, sighed. 

“You didn’t want any surprises?” Natasha’s voice had gentled slightly. She was somehow able to strike just the right note of sympathy - not pity - that allowed him to actually consider confiding in her.

“Yeah.” 

“Was it what you expected?”

“Yes and no.” He shrugged and waved his hand while searching for the words he wanted. “The exhibit itself is what I anticipated. History, heavily skewed towards Captain America propaganda, mixed with a rosy picture of what we did back in the war. What _I_ did, to get there.”

“Heavily sanitized, was it?”

Steve raised his eyebrows at her. “You’re telling me you don’t know? Haven’t scouted the museum out prior to this op? Didn’t try and glean some juicy tidbits to tease me with?” Steve paused, considering. “In fact, I’m surprised you weren’t part of the team approving what would be allowed into the exhibit from the SHIELD files.” 

“I have done recon, actually, though I didn’t have the chance to investigate all the details. I don’t need preparation to tease you, Steve, since it’s so easy already.” 

“And I’m fairly sure a small army of archivists and PR flunkies had literal fights over who got to dredge the archives for juicy additions to the public records. I would imagine there were more than a few arguments over what would be historically critical to include, versus what would be unwise to share with the public, from an intelligence perspective.”

Steve didn’t bother to resist the urge to roll his eyes. “Nothing ever changes, does it?”

A raised brow was Natasha’s only response.

“There are a lot of things about me that didn’t make it to the press without a significant amount of editing, exaggerating, and tactical approvals. And about stuff that didn’t even have anything to do with Erskine or the details of Project Rebirth. They even hid that I was born early and where I spent my first few months of life, how many times I lied to the recruiters and the lengths I was willing to go to try to get into the army, the number of fights I picked with guys bigger and louder than me growing up…”

Natasha snorted. “Not much has changed there, though you’d have to turn to Thor or Hulk to find someone bigger than you these days.” She paused, looking at him speculatively. “You were a preemie?”

“Yeah. My Ma guessed I was a little over a month and a half early. And small, even at that.”

“Hmmm… That list of health problems on the army intake forms. Is that why…?”

“Why I had a dossier of health problems that I tried to hide from the recruiters back then? Maybe in part. My Ma had a heck of a time trying to get me to grow, even past the baby stage. But it could have also been due to growing up in some of the places we lived, aftereffects of being sick so often as a kid, or just pure bad luck, too. Who really knows?”

“Why is that something that the army would want to hide? You would think it would add to the wonder at your transformation into Captain America.”

Steve smiled and shook his head. “Well, that’s probably because I was one of the Coney Island sideshow babies.”

Natasha narrowed her eyes at him. “That what?”

“One of the incubator babies in the Luna Park incubator show.”

“Babies? In a show at an amusement park?”

“Yup. There were a few shows around the country, as well as in Europe, that featured incubator technology for keeping premature and small babies warm. My mother, and the parents of many of the babies in the shows, credit doctors like Dr. Couney from the Coney Island show, with the survival of a lot of babies that medicine at the time thought were hopeless cases.”

“Huh.”

“Still, many people thought it was a garish thing to do, put these ‘tiny little waifs’ in the public eye for money, even at the time.” Steve considered for a moment. “Probably even more so today, I’d imagine. And various authorities, real and self-proclaimed, tried to get the shows shut down from time to time. So I can’t imagine the army would want their poster boy to be associated with that sort of controversy.”

Steve huffed a soft, humorless chuckle. “Didn’t stop them from turning me into their own obedient show monkey selling war bonds, though.”

“Is there any documentation tying you to the show?”

“Well, I’m not sure what sorts of medical records might exist from the doctor and nurses from the show, but my mother had letters that she wrote to me while I was there. I used to beg her to read them to me when I was little. It was like a bedtime story for me. Even after she died and I was on my own, I kept those letters from her.”

The car finally pulled up to where they would make their entrance for the exhibit’s opening ceremony and Steve cast his eyes towards the ceiling before tugging at his jacket and tie one last time.

“Stop that, you’re wrinkling everything,” Natasha said, leaning over to straighten Steve’s tie and pat the shoulders of the jacket into place. When she pulled away, she met his eyes evenly, no hint of her occasional mischief. “Do you still have them? Your mother’s letters?”

“No.” Steve shook his head and resisted the urge to tug at his clothes again. “They weren’t in any of the personal effects that SHIELD had acquired from the army or the Strategic Scientific Reserve. I assume they were either lost, discarded as unimportant, or hidden away as an intelligence risk. Who knows?”

Natasha reached for the door handle before the waiting SHIELD aide could open it for her. “Hmmm. I suppose it has been quite some time.” She gracefully exited the car ahead of Steve and then turned, reaching out her hand as though to assist him in getting up. 

“Shall we, old man?”

Steve laughed softly, though took her offered hand and ignored the flash of cameras as he stepped out himself. “Knew you couldn’t hold it in for long.”

**

A week later, returning to his apartment after an op, Steve could tell that someone had been there in his absence. It only took a minute to clear the space, his senses on alert, before he found the folder sitting on his kitchen table. Stapled on top in pride of place was a photocopy of a familiar-looking pencil drawing of a monkey in a suit holding a shield.

That particular memory, Steve could do without, but as for the contents of the folder? That was… really something. Each page was a printout of a transcription of his mother’s letters, those to him that he remembered and even a few that had apparently been retrieved from family members she had corresponded with from time to time.

By the next morning, Steve read every page twice, soaking up the memories. It was a bittersweet experience. The words were so familiar, even now, that if he focused for a moment he could hear his mother’s tone and phrasing through the letters. But reading them in type instead of in her precise script, knowing that some likely-bored transcriber had gone over every one of his mother’s letters and typed them up to be scanned and stored on a computer somewhere for secrecy’s sake, or posterity…

Well, he’d appreciate the thought, all the same. And he wondered if Natasha had read everything herself, and if so, what she thought of this side of the pre-Captain America Steve Rogers.


	2. Chapter 2

Dearest Mary, 

I am writing again so soon, not to tell you more news of the city or of your niece or nephew to be as I promised my last letter, but instead to share the news of my grief. 

My Joseph has died. 

I received the telegram several days ago and I’d hoped and prayed that somehow, some way, they could have been wrong. Perhaps mistaking Joseph for another soldier? Or sending word of death when instead here was merely facing injury?

But it was not to be. This morning I received a letter from the chaplain in the 107th. He sent me the last letter that Joseph was to send me, and also told me of what happened. They were involved in a standoff that escalated to a full attack. Joseph’s whole division was exposed to mustard gas, and apparently my Joe was affected severely. Their access to medical treatment was delayed when they were pinned down by the enemy overnight, and that delay in treatment proved fatal for my Joseph, for when they were able to receive help, it was too late to reverse the effects.

He did not go into further detail, but I am a nurse. Even if I have not served our soldiers in the Great War, I know what his end was like and the thought of it will surely haunt me to the end of my days. It is of some consolation to know that Joseph was not alone when he died, and that his thoughts were on me and our child at the end.

I don’t know what else to say, I cannot draw my thoughts away from my heartbreak, and so I will end this letter here.

Your loyal sister,  
Sarah

**

Dearest Mary,

It's still real. I can hardly believe it. Even as I feel the child begin to move ever more strongly inside of me, I continually grieve that our future will not have Joseph in it. That Joseph will never meet his child, and that this child will never know him as a father. 

The needs of the war have allowed me to continue working even after Joseph and I married, but I’ve done what I could to mask evidence of our increasing family. There are many concessions made in wartime, I know, but I am afraid of what will become of us if this is a step too far for society to bear. The apron that I wear when serving in the Maternity Center Association clinic is quite forgiving, but when I am out on rounds, with the weather growing warmer I can no longer hide amidst heavy coats and scarves over my uniform. That itself I have had to alter many times thus far. I am more grateful than I ever imagined being for my nurse’s bag when I am out on my community visits. 

As for the hours I spend in my training with my tiniest patients? Annabelle has guessed, and I suspect that Dr Couney and Madame Recht know as well. Whether Anna told them or they guessed on their own I haven’t asked. But I haven’t been ordered to leave, either, and for that, I am terribly grateful. Dr. Couney and Madame Recht have strict guidelines on the uniform standards of their nurses, and no other garments are permitted to be worn and risk endangering the wee ones, but the doctor, when he is in attendance, and Madame Recht, as the Head Nurse, perform most of the demonstrations for the passersby, so I can retreat to other tasks away from the limelight and possible discovery. 

And the children! Oh, Mary, the babies. They show such fortitude despite their small size and frail appearance. When none else would give them a chance and their families hope, Dr. Couney insists that with the proper care and environment, they can survive and thrive. It is boggling to think that I, myself, have a being of such potential growing inside me.

Despite the hardships and my grief, I am thankful, so very thankful, to have my patients to dedicate myself to. 

Yours in hope and dedication,  
Sarah

**

Dear Mary,

I drew much comfort from your letters, and they seem to arrive just as I need them most. 

I am glad, too, that your John was able to curb your instinct to rush off to see to me, for I don’t think overseas travel is in the best interests of either of us in our current states. As for your generous offer to open your home to me and your niece or nephew - for now, I intend to stay here in New York and try to give our child the life that Joseph and I thought we would provide for him or her together.

It is hard, much of the time, to imagine that my life still contains some blessings, but I must acknowledge that it does. 

My job provides what we need to live on, for now, and I will have access to opportunities here due to my training that could open doors for our future. Working in the Maternity Center Association and expanding my training in the public health needs means that I am providing care for those that need me most, those that are so much like us and the women we grew up with. There is much satisfaction, and distraction, in this work, Mary. Those are both things that I need now, and surely will in the future, as well.

Tomorrow is another day with my specialized training, so I must go to bed and try to get what rest I can despite the little one’s demands upon me. I know the thought of keeping babies in a fair is shocking to you, Mary, but I cannot tell you how inspiring they are. Never before have I seen such small babies, and yet they are so perfect, nevertheless, and so determined to survive, if only we can support their little bodies while they continue to grow outside in the incubators, much as ours do inside the womb.

Your sister,  
Sarah

**

Dearest Mary,

Reading your last letter has brought me much comfort, and I thank you for that kindness. I’m so happy to hear that John has found work again, his skills cannot be allowed to atrophy, and surely there are many who can see beyond his leg to see that a carpenter of his talent should not be wasted. 

I hope the little ones have recovered from their sickness by the time this letter reaches you. I am intimidated by looking after the needs of a single child, I cannot yet imagine what you must go through with two, and very nearly three! I do look forward to your wisdom in the coming years, for I will surely need it.

As for the news here… The heat has struck the city early this year, quick on the heels of the rain, and I have grown increasingly uncomfortable (for all that I have not grown nearly as large as one would expect in other ways.) I know that women carry in all different manners and one shouldn’t necessarily compare, but I can’t help but worry when I see other expecting women in the neighborhood or on my rounds.

The false pains have begun, and I remember that you told me that yours started occasionally around this time. I am trying to heed your advice and drink fresh water and lie down when I am able to when they appear, but of course- *

[* S.H.I.E.L.D. notation: the remainder of this letter could not be located for transcription.]

**

My Little Steven,

Your young life has been a whirlwind already, my child, and you are not yet four days old.

Later, when you are old enough to read this, if I am strong enough to show it to you, you may laugh at your poor mother, writing to an infant, but I shall do it anyways. You should know where you came from, and how strong you are to have survived. And to do so means that you will live, despite what most of the physicians who have met you thus far have proclaimed. We are separated by layers of glass right now, my son, but in this way, I can feel that we are close.

So here is your history…

You made your entrance into the world over a month and a half early, far sooner than you should have, my son. I wonder, will impatience be a trait that you carry with you throughout your life? Knowing it was far too soon, I did go to hospital for help (and what a surprise that was for those who I’ve worked alongside who still had no idea that I was with child!). They could not slow my labor, and offered very little in the way of hope that you could possibly survive - I was so small, after all, and they insisted that I mustn’t be as far along as I told them, though I am sure.

I will admit, I spent much of that time crying, little one. My friend, Catherine, who is a fellow nurse, spent as much time as she could looking in on me and offering what comfort she could, but I could hardly stem the flow. I hope you were too busy being born to sense it. 

I couldn’t face the thought, the near certainty, that I could lose you, as well. It would be too much for one soul to bear.

When you were born, Catherine was there with a blanket, intending to whisk you away and spare me the inevitable, I’m sure. But you, of course, had other plans. You emerged with a shout (not a mere cry!) of displeasure at this turn of events (and I assure you that I was no more pleased than you about the rigors of birthing) and shocked us all.

You were so tiny, Steven. So incredibly tiny. And yet your voice was loud. I demanded that Catherine hand you to me, so she dried you off and wrapped you up in that blanket and placed you right there over my heart. You were so tiny, and so perfect. You are so perfect.

Dr. Burns looked so grim for a man who is generally rather jolly. He told me to hold you and love you as much as I wished, but that I should know that he’d rarely known a child of your size to live longer than a few days. After training for several months with Dr. Couney and his tiny babies, I had seen several wee miracles, and heard of more, but it’s true. I, too, had yet to see one as small as you survive.

Outside the ward door, I could hear Catherine ask Dr. Burns if there could be any hope at all. He told her there was very little, which nearly broke my heart in two. Then he paused for a long time before telling her that perhaps it would have been kinder if you had not survived beyond the birth, because now he feared that I was doomed to watch you linger before ultimately succumbing to your fate. I cried some more, including onto you, I suspect, though you did not seem to be bothered by it. Until this year, I had no idea how much a person could cry and not run dry. Catherine came back after her shift ended and told me that I mustn’t give up hope until there try is none left to hold on to. And so I asked a favor of her, a bold one.

I wrote a note[*] and asked her to deliver it to Dr. Couney and Madame Recht. In it I begged them to meet you and take you into their care. I know that they, and the incubators on Coney Island, would be the only chance there would be for us. It was a chance that we desperately needed.

And they did. Dr. Couney warned me that there were no assurances, and that the incubators couldn’t work miracles on their own… but that they could help them along. But he accepted you and transferred you in a warmed box to Coney Island and placed you into one of the incubators for care. 

And that, my little one, is where you rest now, sleeping in the warm embrace of an incubator instead of my arms, but sleeping nonetheless, alive and whole.

Catherine is back to implore me to sleep so that I may recover, so I will end this part of your story here.

With more than than I could imagine holding in my heart,  
Your Mother

[* S.H.I.E.L.D. notation: the referenced note was never recovered from the files of Couney or Recht.]

**

My Little Steven,

Your name is Steven Grant Rogers, and I suppose I should tell you how you came by it. Your father and I didn’t have much trouble agreeing on the two names we loved most, though for the longest time we couldn’t decide which order they would be granted to you. What was most in contention, my son, was the spelling of your name. Your father wanted spell your name with “Stephen” using the “ph” while I preferred your name with the “v” in the middle. 

Your father’s spelling is the biblical way, which he insisted was the proper way. While I am certainly not going to criticize the Good Book’s spelling of the name, I was reluctant to name you fully after Saint Stephen, given that he is best known for being the very first martyr.

Mind you, we had none of these debates over the girls names we selected; those were easily agreed upon. So naturally, you are a boy.

In the end, in memory of your father and his preference, you’ve been given Steven as your first name with Grant your second, and the spelling was given according to my wishes.

Your name means ‘crown’ and also ‘one who is victorious.`` And that, my son, is exactly what you will be.

With love and memory,  
Your Mother

**

Dear Steven,

Today is my first day seeing you and being near you since you were whisked off with Dr. Couney to Coney Island while I continued to convalesce in hospital. You curled your little hand around my finger and held on so tightly; even in your sleep you seemed to know it was me. I must admit that I shed more than a few tears over you then, but these were happier ones than the last.

I am here not only to see you, my son, but to learn the duties of my new role. Since Dr. Couney does not recommend me to continue in my role as a nurse while you are one of his charges, Madame Recht offered a temporary solution: I will serve as a wet nurse for the time being, providing the nutrition needed by you and the other babies in the incubator show.

There are a lot of guidelines to follow for this role, it turns out. Anne, the other wet nurse for Dr. Couney’s babies, told me that the position is open now because another was recently let go from the position due to failure to abide by the strict dietary guidelines demanded of us by Dr Couney. Apparently, she was caught eating a hot dog from one of the stalls here at the park! 

There are many other rules that must be followed, but I am accustomed to that, given my time as a nurse. For now, this is gainful employment until I can return to the schedule and rigors of my nursing position, and it allows me to be closer to you.

Anne seems to be a friendly and helpful sort, so I may be able to depend on her for companionship and perhaps even friendship, one day. She is a young widow with a child to support as well, so we have that in common. She told me that her daughter is with her late husband’s brother and his wife for a time while Anne serves here on Coney Island.

For now, this is enough: I have you, I have a position and purpose, and I have a few dear friends with another possible on the horizon.

Yours in contentment and hope,  
Your Mother

**

Dear Steven,

Today marks your very first day front and center in one of Dr. Couney’s demonstrations. I knew that this was part of the arrangement when I asked him to consider you for one of his patients, but seeing the pomp and circumstance in front of me is quite another prospect. 

Because your breathing is strong and you are able to accept small amounts of milk by spoon, your most marked concern is your size - still a tiny soul, you are. Madame Recht dressed you in clothing meant for a full-sized newborn and it looked frankly absurd hanging off your small frame. All the passersby were awed, I am told, by the sight of you - so small and yet so full of life, squirming and looking around as Dr. Couney held you aloft, outside of the incubator for a brief demonstration.

Madame Recht tells me that you didn’t appear strained by the experience, and are certainly no worse for wear, all the while helping to educate the visitors about the needs and possibilities that careful care of the prematurely born infant can offer. I hope that is true, little one. And I hope that all of this can lead to a revolution in the care of children like you - those that many doctors might give up on but could be saved with careful care and technological advancement like what we have here. Perhaps someday such breakthroughs can be accepted everywhere and not be relegated to an oddity exhibit in an amusement park.

And I hope, most of all, that you will understand my choice, and forgive your mother for the decision that led to you becoming a curiosity in a sideshow, however miraculous that sideshow is.

Yours in hope,  
Your Mother

**

Dear Steven,

Today was a quiet day. Once again, Madame Recht amazed the crowds by showing how her diamond ring could fit around little Martha’s wrist. What stood out to me, little one, is that you have now outgrown that ring by a fair amount. You’ve come so far. 

Keep going, my darling.

With love,  
Your Mother

**

Dear Steven,

Now that I am feeling well recovered, I have made a habit of taking a short walk around the park on occasion between the scheduled feedings for you and the other little ones. So long as I don’t draw attention to myself and my reason for being here at the park, nor partake of any forbidden food and drink from the stalls, I have been permitted and even encouraged in this endeavor.

I feel restless, so much more often now than I did before. I am used to being active from dawn until dark, and to have many and varied duties to attend to, so perhaps my mind is telling me that it hasn’t yet adjusted. But the thought of being apart from you for such lengths of time also fills me with dread. I haven’t yet solved the problem of what we will do in the future when I must return to my nursing duties to support us. But I have faith that a solution with present itself, or we will make one, when the time comes and you are home.

How I love to write those words, my son, for they grow ever more true. Each day that passes brings us closer and closer to you being big enough and healthy enough to leave the incubator and be home with me. A real home.

I confess I don’t know where that will be yet. I let the rooms your father and I had been renting go. With both of our basic needs being cared for here, the small stipend I earn now is money better saved for the future. Mrs. Weber is giving us the kindness of allowing me to use the basement store room, which has a lock. She even put all three of her boys to work, carrying down our belongings for us.

We won’t have to start from nothing again, little one. For that, and for you, I am grateful.

Forever,  
Your Mother

**

Dear Steven,

It’s interesting to watch the people here on Coney Island, wandering around from amusement to amusement. The incubator show is nestled amidst the other peculiarities, and every so often you can hear a barker call, “Don’t forget to see the babies!”

I don’t think I’ll miss it, Steven. As much as we owe to Dr. Couney and the incubator show, and even to the curious visitors whose entrance fees pay for this miracle we have here, I look forward to the day when we can both leave here and live a quiet life. A normal life. I’m not sure I know what that will look like. Perhaps I’ll be bored when the time comes? Our current neighbors are a troupe of acrobats and contortionists on one side and a trained animal show on the other. 

Despite the oddness that would imply, Steven, you must always remember something important. Whether you are walking from one bed to the next in the wards of a hospital or from show to show along the midway at a fair, people are mostly just that. They are people. We all have our struggles and successes, our happiness and heartbreak, and our hopes and dreams. 

When I was caught in a sudden rainstorm last week, Hector, one of the dog trainers, escorted me back to the incubator building with his umbrella held over my head while he was surely soaked to the bone. May, the daughter of two of the acrobats, remembers us on hot days when she is carrying fresh water for her troupe and shares with us generously. Anne makes me smile every day, without fail, and has become an invaluable companion. Dr. Couney and Madame Recht, for all the theater they create for the show, are incredibly protective of their charges, recording their weights and other development, assessing their needs and progress constantly, adjusting their care, and worrying when one isn’t responding as well as hoped.

Perhaps I was wrong, earlier in this rambling letter. I think there is something that I will miss about this place. It is the people who make up your family, however temporary, when you need them. The ones who help you to feel less alone. Always find those people, Steven, and you won’t forget why you are here and what your purpose is. And you will always be home.

With love,  
Your Mother

**

Dear Stephen,

It’s nearly time, my son! You have grown so much since your beginning! You are even starting to resemble other newborns, with the start of an extra chin and some meat to your bones. I wish you father could see you, little one. He would be so incredibly proud of you. The doctors who marvel at the progress the babies here in the show make exclaim at how Dr. Couney turns weaklings into fighters. I don’t believe you were ever a weakling at heart, my darling, but you are certainly a fighter.

We have so many changes ahead of us, I don’t know where to start. Dr. Couney is very pleased with your progress and feels that you will be ready to be released from his care within a week, or perhaps two. 

Anne and I have come up with a solution to our mutual needs. We have decided to share lodging for now, until we are each able to set out on our own. I will return to work at the Maternity Center Association, though with Madame Recht’s and Dr. Couney’s blessings I’ll not return here to complete any further training in premature infant care, and resume my nursing duties. Anne will care for you along with her own little Eliza while I am away, and take in mending and washing as much as she is able. 

If you are released before we have secured accommodations, her late husband’s family, the Barneses, have generously offered to allow you and I to stay with them for a short time as well, until we can be settled. It will be cramped living, but it may be a fine transition from the bustle of Luna Park, to which I’ve grown accustomed.

It’s a new start for us, my son, and it is finally upon us.

With love and excitement,  
Your Mother


	3. Chapter 3

A visit at 11:30 PM probably wouldn’t be considered all that friendly, for most people, Steve figured, but since when were the Avengers “most people?” Regardless, the light was still on in Natasha’s office, so he took the implied invitation and walked in. Technically, the office supposedly belonged to everyone who was left, but in reality it was Natasha who spent more time there than anywhere else in the compound, including her own bed, so Steve figured that made it hers by default.

Natasha looked up at him with a small smile as he settled onto the chair across from her and placed the brown paper bags on top of a stack of files.

“Have you had dinner?”

Natasha cocked her head to the side in thought before glancing over at the small stack of plates in the corner. “I think that was lunch, actually, so no.”

“More peanut butter, I presume?”

“I tried it with marshmallow fluff last week when I went to check on that tip with the team in Boston.” She shrugged. “New Englanders are weird.”

Steve smiled in return and opened the bag, handing her one of the carry-out containers of chicken soup, still warm enough on the bottom to sting his fingers. Natasha’s smile widened as she removed the lid and breathed in deeply. She reached into the bag to take the bread out, tearing off a hunk of it and dropping it directly into the soup and watched it soak up the broth. 

Steve took the beer out of the other bag and set them onto the desk before digging into his own soup.

“Bringing me presents, Rogers? I’m flattered. Good thing I’m prepared with a little something to give you in return.”

Steve paused mid-bite, “Oh?”

Natasha took large spoonful of noodles before she reached down into one of the desk drawers and pulled out a thick brown accordion folder.

“These files were found when the old base in New Jersey was fully cleared after everything went down with Zemo’s program. Apparently someone felt that these letters were important enough to merit a fire-and-bomb proof safe.” Natasha paused a moment before continuing. “They were then transferred to another holding facility and essentially shoved into a corner and forgotten amidst all the crises.”

Natasha handed the folder across the desk to Steve, and he pulled the flap to peer inside.

Breathing deliberately steadily, Steve pulled out the top letter, brushing his fingers over familiar handwriting along the top indicating the date and addressee.

He read the first page of the letter in silence, before putting it aside and shuffling through several more letters, some with envelopes included, in the file, before carefully packing everything away again. He closed the flap and rested his hands over it with his eyes closed for several long seconds before they flashed open again and captured Natasha’s gaze.

“And you just happened to stumble across them now?” Disbelief colored Steve’s tone, even over the sudden gruffness to his voice.

“Yes.” At Steve’s raised eyebrow, Natasha reached over the desk and placed a hand over one of his own. “Really. It was clearly deliberately hidden away in the beginning, but at some point I think it just got mixed in with the thousands of other files SHIELD kept in storage. Whoever pulled these out of the rubble in New Jersey likely didn’t even know what they’d discovered, and everything was shipped to another holding facility for security reasons.”

“And how did you come across it then? Doing a little light reading?”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, Zemo’s a piece of work but I wanted to see if there was anything in the files we managed to recover from his databases or storage facilities that could help us… somehow.” She shrugged, not willing to acknowledge that she didn’t know how a Hydra scientist-torturer could possibly help the world recover from Thanos. 

“It’s been over two years, Tasha. You think there’s something in decades old storerooms that can help us out now?”

Natasha met his eyes levelly. “I can’t not try.”

Steve got it, he did. But she would wear herself down if she kept that up. Even the Widow couldn’t keep this obsessive pace up forever. 

At some point, they would all have to try to move on. With the world. With life.

Yeah, and maybe if he said it enough, he might even convince himself. 

Staring down at the pages in front of him, thumbing the edges of the faded envelope in his hand, Steve wondered. He’d lost his world, or at least significant parts of it, what? A half dozen times now? And yet, somehow, the world carried on. Eventually, so would he.

Even so...

“Thank you, Natasha. This means a lot to me.”

Natasha cracked open two of the beers, handing one to Steve before raising hers in a toast. “You’re welcome.”

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes: So many thanks to podfic_lover for partnering with me for this project - from brainstorming to writing to being able to see the building of a podfic, this has been a wonderful experience. And also a big thank you to MistbornHero who, as their name implies, heroically stepped in to beta on a very narrow time schedule - you rock!
> 
> Background Info: [Incubator baby shows](https://daily.jstor.org/coney-islands-incubator-babies/) were a [real thing](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/coney-island-sideshow-advanced-medicine-premature-babies), with such shows in fairs and amusement parks in Europe and the US. Among the most well-known in the US were those of [Dr. Martin Couney](http://www.neonatology.org/classics/silverman/silverman1.html) (who may, in fact, not have been a licensed/formally trained physician at all) who had several shows, among them the one at Luna Park on Coney Island that I've used as my inspiration for this story. 
> 
> Despite the unsettling idea of putting fragile preemies on display for public observation, Dr. Couney is credited with helping to encourage the support and advancement of the technology and careful medical and nursing practices needed to help premature infants survive and thrive, all in a time when the death rate for preemies was very high and most parents of premature or small infants were given very little hope. The fees charged for admission to the shows were used to support the infants and all of their needs, as well as pay the staff who cared for them. The parents of these infants were not charged for their care, nor was care restricted by race or socioeconomic background. ([reference](http://www.neonatology.org/pdf/lieberman.pdf))


End file.
